Tom O’Donnell is a principal and a managing direction at 3D Capital Management. Tom began his career at the Virginia Retirement System where he pioneered the use of alternative investments to mitigate portfolio risks.

Since then, Tom’s 30-year career has been devoted to reminding investors that markets move in two directions: up and down. Tom has been finding and using alternative investment strategies to reduce risk and enhance returns across the business cycle.

In today’s conversation, we talked with Tom about this history of the Managed Futures industry, the relationship between returns and assets under management, and how investors should think about combining short and long volatility investments.

In the interview, Tom mentions a financial instrument called the e-mini. The E-mini is a commonly traded futures contract that is worth one-fifth of a full S&P futures contract, but for the purposes of our contract, it can just be thought of as a S&P contract.